The MB's have settled in very nicely.  The starter hole that I created for them is now unrecognisable.  The tunnel was expanded and now reaches from the top to the bottom of the ant farm.  Infact, they have begun to excavate the gravel from the bottom of the farm.  The queen and her workers and brood are now settled at the bottom in the gravel chamber.  One of the workers, managed to dig himself into the sand away from the main area, and somehow trapped itself.  For 3 days I have watched it dig a tunnel about 4 inches long, but still not get back to the rest of the colony...In the end, today, I intervened.  I got a very narrow stick, and poked it down into the sand to where the trapped worker was, and freed it.  It still took the worker once freed about half an hour to find the main nest entrance and rejoin her friends.  These workers are not to intelligent it has to be said.

The MR's have continued to enlarge the nest, and I have seen at least 3 new workers (they are much much paler) than the rest.  I caught and killed a rafter spider and put it into the basin area for them to eat, and I must say they loved it, although my wife was horrified that I killed a spider...so I feel quite remorseful about that.  Why is it that killing a fly is ok but killing a spider is not?  Anyway, the rafter spider was quickly cut to pieces and removed to the main nest...and this was not a small spider.

The LN Queen is now also settled into her farm.  She has filled in the tunnel behind her, and is now in a small chamber completely cut off from the outside world.  Rather kindly she has left a window at the front for us to see her.  She's laid a brood of eggs, but I can't say how many there are, because they are just to small, but if I had to estimate, it would be about 8 or nine.

More soon! - When I let you know how my first attempt at making a ytong nest works out.